there's a storm you're starting
by betweentheraindrops
Summary: Carrie/Brody. Post Marine One. The three times he doesn't visit her in the hospital and the one time he does.


A/N: Takes place post Marine One. I was kind of inspired by the scene of Brody "visiting" Carrie in the hospital from the season one dvd. Title comes from "Hurricane" by Halsey. Reviews would be lovely.

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The lights above glitter through her closed eyes. She can see shadows, hear voices, but can't make anything out. She feels the moment the morphine hits her veins and lets out a small smile at the feeling. She hasn't felt numb in so long, a tingling sensation running through her body.

The machines' beeping echoes in her mind, and she pays attention to it as it slowly fades. She falls deeper and deeper and revels in it.

She falls until there's nothing else to hear. The voices of the doctor and nurses fade into whispers and eventually silence and she welcomes the nothingness beneath. The machines begin to softly reverberate in her ears, and it's a steadily annoying rhythm that she's grown used to over the years.

Carrie thinks of their weekend at the cabin. How his rough hands held her gently. How he let her in. She generally tries to ignore how very right being with him felt, the damaged married Marine who wanted nothing to do with her and made her feel like she was crazy.

Her eyes gently open, and she adjusts herself to the stiff bed as well as the bright lights above.

Brody is leaning against the doorframe in a casual position, gazing at her.

All she wants is him next to her, kissing her, being on top of her, holding her close as if she'll vanish if he doesn't. She smiles, "Hey."

Her voice is a bit coarse and she clears her throat. He moves to sit by her bed.

"I missed you," falls out of her mouth. "I'm sorry about before."

Carrie says it fast, waving her hand in a casual motion as if they can forget the past. What she did. What she thought he did. Brody doesn't say anything, but she doesn't want him to. He's here.

Except he's not.

She moves to touch his hand, the one that's resting on the side of her bed, and frowns when her hand moves through the air.

He fades as she begins to stir, her image of him grainy and eventually obsolete.

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The nurse brings her the hospital's punctual two o'clock pudding, and Carrie frowns at the tray table in front of her, turning to face the blinds on the windowsill.

Her gaze sweeps over the drawings her nieces left her on her nightstand. There's a doodle of Maggie and Carrie next to a glob of blue. She realizes it's supposed to be a drawing of the lake by the cabin, and averts her eyes, falling onto her pillows.

Carrie dozes off within minutes.

There's a knock at her door and she awakes with a flourish, running a hand through her hair when she sees him. It doesn't feel odd that he's here; she just gives him a smile that matches his own.

He's wearing a suit, a tailored, Congress-appropriate suit. He's pulling at the tie around his neck and she motions for him to come closer. When he does, she loosens the tie for him and her breath hitches when she smells cologne mixed with his aftershave.

"There," she says, coyly running her hand through the silk of his tie.

Brody gives her another smile, one that makes his eyes brighten, and she can't help the flush that colors her cheeks.

He gets a call from someone named Betty or Betsy or whatever and leaves the room to take it. She gazes over at his suit coat on the chair next to her bed and feels happier than she has for days. (Maybe weeks.)

Maggie's voice filters through the sound of machines beeping next to her, and she's telling Saul about lithium and dosages and Carrie shuts her eyes tight.

She knows that when she opens them she won't see red hair and a smile meant only for her, but sunlight coming through the windows.

There won't be a suit coat next to her no matter how many times she looks.

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The nurses induce another seizure and this time she is knocked out for a whole day. It's electric and it's a bit painful, but she falls and falls into blackness until she doesn't feel a thing.

She remembers sensations long forgotten, like the way it felt to play chicken on the train tracks and driving a car on her grandparents' estate at fourteen.

She remembers the way Brody made her toes curl.

There's a bar and a cabin and a weekend.

He stays silent when he visits, but he listens dutifully as they sit in the box of her hospital room. It's small but comfortable, she says, and looks into his face for answers to questions she doesn't begin to ask.

Brody watches her, and she watches him. He never talks, but he listens, and she'll take what she can get.

If she concentrates enough, she can remember in clarity their handful of moments and the beginning of something that could've been real. She can see a cabin and a growing curiosity and two broken souls breaking their own rules.

His hand runs up her arm and she looks up, eyes opening, to see Saul.

"Christ Carrie, what are you muttering about?"

She shakes her head and turns over to face the window. It's raining outside and the flowers on her bedside table have withered and decayed. "Nothing," she mumbles, willing him to leave so she can go back.

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She's asleep when he comes in with a light knock. There are cards and dead flowers near her bed but she looks content in her slumber. He cautiously walks into her room and feels a sense of dread but also relief.

Her lips are as pink as he remembers them, and the sweater wrapped around her shoulders reminds him of the blankets in the cabin.

He carefully takes the seat next to her bed after taking off his sport coat and watches her, deciding that it's best she's asleep anyway. Her face looks soft and healthy and she looks better than the last time he saw her. Brody looks over his shoulder for no real reason other than to make sure no one's there. It was hard enough sneaking into her room when she didn't have visitors.

"I'm sorry," he says, low. It's guttural and he's looking at her hands when he says it. Even though she's asleep, he still can't look her in the face when he says the words. "You were right," he whispers so quietly he can barely hear his own voice. "And now you're- well, you're here.

"And I'm alive. I wasn't supposed to be."

It's the first time he's said it aloud, and some part of him hopes she can hear him. Maybe she can end the nightmare. At least he wouldn't be Walden's puppet anymore.

He gazes at the machines she's hooked up to and feels his stomach drop. _All me_ , he thinks, and purses his lips as he sits by her bed. Brody twiddles his wedding ring around his finger and feels its weight on his skin. In this moment, it feels like a vice.

She begins to stir and he takes it as his cue to go. He picks up his coat and looks over at her once more. He wants to say too many things, too many truths, too many lies to cover the ones that had landed her in this shoebox of a room in the first place.

He settles on a silent goodbye.

.

When she awakes, the door is ajar and she can smell the faintest bit of cologne mixed with aftershave.

For reasons she can't understand, it makes her smile.


End file.
